MERRY ABSURDITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

MERRY ABSURDITY.

MR. WODEHOUSE IN "HOT WATER."

The delectable stories of Mr. P. G. Wodehoitse may be divided, if not into those 4.hat are absurd and those that are most absurd, at least into comedies and farces. "Jill the Reckless," one of the best, is a comedy. "Hot Water," his litest, which comes in the Herbert Jenkins jacket, is certainly a farce. One could believe in Jill and the fishyeyed American theatrical manager whose verdict was "It don't add up. right," but one cannot believe in Mr. J. Wellington Gedge, or his social climbing wife, or the Vicomte de Blissac, or Soup Slattery, the American crook, or, indeed, any of the dramatis personae of this high-speed story that revolves round a rented chateau on the French coast. But does this matter? Not a bit! The fun is so fast and furious, the wit and humour so bubbling, the American slang so piquant, that one just reads and chuckles. It is only now, after all these -years, that justiceis being done to Mr. Wodehouse's style. "The town of St. Rocque stood near the (Toast of France. The Chateau Blissac stood near the town of St. Rocque. J. Wellington Gedge Stood near the Chateau Blissac." That is an admirable opening for a book, isn't it 1 A few pages further on we read tliat "he found Mre. Gedge in the Venetian Suite, a large apartment with a heavily carved ceiling which looked as if it were coming down to bean you," and we hear a young lady telling her fiance that he must cut his hair, because 4 he looks "like a chrysanthemum," and we know this is the authentic P.G. And listen to Mr. Slattery's lament for his former sparring partner: "Julia," said Mr. Slattery, manfully holding the floor, "worked with me for years. And then one day—four years ago almost to this very minute—she told me out of a blue sky, as you might say, that she was through. Just like that. No explanations. Just gave me the Bronx Cheer and beat it. Afld me who had Bplit Even Stephen with her on every deal, never chiselling, never holding out on her, no, not so much as a dime. Seems to me sometimes, the squarer a guy is with these beazels, the worse they treat him. . . . Shall I tell you something, Oily? I even do stick-up work now." "You do?" said Mr. Carlisle, and though he tried to keep the note of disapproval out of his voice it crept in. He hoped he was no snob, but there are social grades and degrees in the world of crime, and everybody knows that stick-up men are not quite. Mr. Slattery flushed. "A guy's got to live," he argued. "Oh, sure,' said Mr. Carlisle. Nonsense, 110 doubt, but as the young lady of county family says in i " <